What happens when an aristocratic layabout nephew becomes engaged to a werewolf “from the best of families”? Find out in part two in our conclusion of our loving parody of PG Wodehouse’s work in Giles and Brewster and the Zombie Apocalypse part two!
“Lord and Lady Chennington” Robert C. Fullerton and Olivia WadsworthJ. Timothy Quirk and Kurt Boucher
CREDITS
Nutmeg Junction, Season 2 episode 2
Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse (part 2) was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
The program was recorded at WAPJ, Torrington Community Radio
The program starred:
David Macharelli as Woodrow Brewster
Josh Newey as Giles
Lana Peck as Gloria Chennington
Shannon Sniffin as Gwenivere Chuttle
Jandi Hanna as Aunt Agnes
Kurt Boucher as Toppers
Robert C Fullerton as Lord Chennington
Olivia Wadsworth as Lady Chennington
And J Timothy Quirk as Butterby and Gussie Knitfottle
We begin Season 2 of our audio theater golden-age-of-radio style program by paying homage to the work of the great humorist PG Wodehouse in our loving parody that posits the question, how would the aristocratic world of a gadfly nephew and his gentleman’s gentleman handle an apocalyptic world filled with vampires, werewolves, zombies and more. The answer is found in our two part episode entitled “Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse” This is PART ONE
CREDITS
Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse was written, created and produced by J. Timothy Quirk
The program was recorded at WAPJ, Torrington Community Radio
The program starred:
David Macharelli as Woodrow Brewster
Josh Newey as Giles
Lana Peck as Gloria Chennington
Shannon Sniffin as Gwenivere Chuttle
Jandi Hanna as Aunt Agnes
Kurt Boucher as Toppers
Olivia Wadsworth as Lady Chennington
Robert C. Fullerton as Lord Chennington
And J Timothy Quirk as Butterby and Gussie Knitfottle
Additional music and sound courtesy of youtube royalty free music
Please tune in next time for the conclusion, part two of Giles and Brewster and the Monster Apocalypse
Season 2 we will continue to bring you more unique adventures including more of The Grey Whisper, Space Sentries, Tex Bijou and all of your favorite characters.
Until next time, we hope you enjoyed the ride and may all of your journeys bring you back to a happy home.
Episode 28 features an HP Lovecraft inspired story written by Lana Peck, the Corpse Conductor written and performed by Josh Newey and The Snarflepoofs return!
The Corpse Conductor introduces us to the stories and provides a wonderful bookend to the episode. For the third and final installment of Nightmare Junction (The October Halloween episodes) Josh brings it home for us and deserved a week off to rest the vocal chords!
The Call of the Trolley is the first full story segment written by a cast member and it’s wonderful. Created by Lana Peck, it was pitched at the time we were discussing ideas for the Nightmare Junction stories. David Robinson was cast to portray the character (a stand-in for Lovecraft) and Lana’s script gives two nods to two prior Nutmeg Junction stories.
We then conclude with Snarflepoofs-Snarfleween, the mandatory holiday special. Snarflepoofs are “America’s Most Recent Toy Branded Children’s Entertainment Product” and the idea makes fun of the types of shows that only serve to sell toys by having stories and situations that actually discuss concepts of substance. So Snarfleween allows us to talk about climate change and the environment by talking about an Apple bobbing competition all while the characters maintain their philosophical inclinations. We introduce Nick Bourne into the Junction team. Nick and Lana had worked together under the direction of Keith Paul for a staged reading show at the Warner! (note: I had the opportunity to work for Keith in a staged reading many years ago with, among many others, Lana and Kurt Boucher!) Nick will return next week with two roles as he acts in both story segments we present!
Once again, Jandi Hanna is the narrator for the Snarfle-poofs and has a few fun commercials for “Flattread Tires” and “Greedymine Bottled Water”. Melissa Gabehart returns as “Sneetchey” (Nietzsche) and Jeff Savage is Plato! The first joke in this story pays homage to a famous Jack Benny line (we just did it in our own way). Kurt is Renny (Rene Descartes), Olivia is Wollstonecraft and Lana is Simone. We decided not to keep the “Princess” joke going as it had been done already and it would be cumbersome to continue it. The actors like these roles so much, we might have to do a Thanksgiving special, a “not as loved as Halloween or Christmas but still mandatory viewing holiday special”. And Rich Cyr becomes a Snarflepoof-which one? Listen to find out!
Nutmeg Junction: Nightmare Junction Special #3
Was directed by J. Timothy Quirk and recorded at WAPJ Torrington Community Radio
The Corpse Conductor was written by and starred Josh Newey
In the second Halloween special for Nutmeg Junction (Nightmare Junction) the corpse conductor introduces us to the strange case of Dr. Horace Wells, which is based on a true story of a Dentist in Connecticut and may have been the inspiration for the story “Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde”.
The second tale is a fun story of a poetry reading gone wrong! This one we plan to do LIVE for an audience very soon!
And as a bonus, there’s a wonderful original song by Lana Peck called “Sweet Severed Head” which works perfectly for the Halloween special!
The tale of Dr. Horace Wells was offered first by Conrad Sienkiewicz and followed up by Lana Peck, both of whom shared insight into the piece.
The role of Dr. Wells was portrayed by award winning Atlanta actor Danny Cook, our first “remote actor” for the show (as we record in Connecticut).
Thoughts before Breakfast was specifically created for a live event which will occur in the near future!
Nutmeg Junction: Nightmare Junction Special #2
Was written by J. Timothy Quirk
The sad case of Dr. Wells was Based on the ideas suggestion by Conrad Sienkiewicz and Lana Peck
With input on the Corpse Conductor by Josh Newey
It starred
Danny Cook as Dr. Wells
Josh Newey as the Corpse Conductor and Professor Colton
Intrepid private eye Harriet Holmes meets an iconic detective duo to conclude her search for the Lost Episode of Nutmeg Junction. She locates the story of Trace Duggins: Crime Illustrator in a send-up to the golden age of radio.
SHOW NOTES
There used to be an old time radio program called Casey: Crime Photographer which was nothing more than a detective show with the protagonist who was a photographer for a newspaper. When creating a parody of that show, Kurt Moffett, who is himself a reporter for a newspaper as well as an integral part of the WAPJ radio station family, was tapped to play the lead.
That being said didn’t want to do a photographer and thought a crime “illustrator” had more appeal especially as the character to wax philosophically about the art choices and bake in to the story line a specific reason why the perpetrator would be caught through art. Since I wasn’t going to use “case-y” and thought Trace would be a great name for an artist.
Occasionally we’ll leave some moments of behind the scenes humor/reactions in the show itself. We do that at the very end of the episode courtesy of Rich Cyr!
The Trace Duggins story line is introduced as part of the Harriet Holmes mythology, or rather trilogy for this is the third and probably final part of the “Search for the Lost Episode” saga. To be sure, we’ll have Harriet Holmes in many more adventures but we’ve done three “lost episodes” shows and as it says in the script, three is a magic number. Olivia Wadsworth is wonderful in the role and her monologues have some of the better one-liners.
I’m excited that the show reintroduces Netta and Nathaniel Chance, our tip of the hat to the Thin Man series, and I absolutely love the way Lana Peck and Kurt Boucher channel the iconic era. These characters were recorded on our very first recording day (ever) of Nutmeg Junction and they deserve some more adventures!
The location of the Harriet Holmes section is in Broughton’s Meadow which was the original name for Florence, Massachusetts area in the Pioneer Valley. Their library is Lilly Library and the iconic and wonderful public park is Look Park. See if you can hear the references to these locations!
Also there are a few shout outs to Leominster Massachusetts! The show is heading to Leominster’s WLPZ on October 20th!
We continue our new way of creating Episode art-with photos taken via Kurt Boucher and myself (not sure who took which photos but it was a collaborative effort on the team). Jandi Hanna located a magnifying glass which we used during the photo shoot and in future episode covers it will probably be seen!
CREDITS
EPISODE 25: HARRIET HOLMES AND THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST EPISODE III WITH TRACE DUGGINS: CRIME ILLUSTRATOR
WAS WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK (C)2018
STARRING:
OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS HARRIET HOLMES/MS. SUSPECTON/MRS. GRIMLEY
KURT MOFFETT AS TRACE DUGGINS: CRIME ILLUSTRATOR
LANA PECK AS NETTA CHANCE/NARRATOR
KURT BOUCHER AS NATHANIEL CHANCE/MR. GRIMLEY
MELISSA GABEHART AS STRANGER ON A TRAIN/MAUDE PATTERSON
Professor A and her students Dr. Robere and Ms Gentry travel to a planet in the multi-verse run by an outside authoritarian regime that is extracting the natural resources. In this chapter, Dr. Robere interrogates “Bear” under the direct supervision of the deadly Uni-One “Supervisor Friendly”, Professor attempts to enlist a Representative of the Vigent government to the cause of freedom and Ms. Gentry makes a startling discovery after saving the life of the Guard tasked with bringing her in!
I’m uploading this episode on a momentous occasion for last night we recorded the conclusion (Chapter 8) of this story and find that the entire work came together wonderfully and with each chapter, the stakes became greater and greater and the elements in the earlier parts of the story pay off at the end. This actual story arc will be entitled “UNIVERSE, MINE” and represents Chapters 4-8 in the Professor A saga.
This is the first time we have successfully serialized a character within our Nutmeg Junction world in a multi-part, multi episode (more than 2 episodes) way. The promise of the characters in this series keeps expanding and I’m excited for listeners to hear the story in its entirety. The work of the vocal talent is extraordinary.
PROFESSOR A: CHAPTER 7: RESIST
WRITTEN/CREATED/PRODUCED BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK (C)2018
STARRING
LANA PECK AS THE PROFESSOR/OFFICER FUNSTON
KURT BOUCHER AS DR. ROBERE
TIFFY MCKAY AS MS. GENTRY
WITH
JOSH NEWEY AS SUPERVISOR FRIENDLY
DAVID ROBINSON AS BEARNARD “BEAR” SABLE
OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS THE GUARD SA-RAH
J. TIMOTHY QUIRK AS SECURITY DETAIL
PROFESSOR A THEME CREATED AND PERFORMED BY LANA PECK (C)2018 USED WITH PERMISSION
NUTMEG JUNCTION THEME CREATED AND PERFORMED BY ROBERT C. FULLERTON (C) 2018 USED WITH PERMISSION
ALL CHARACTERS AND STORIES ARE WORKS OF FICTION UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED. ANY RESEMBLANCE OF ANY PERSON OR SITUATION LIVING OR DECEASED IS COMPLETELY COINCIDENTAL.
The story of this episode starts with Lana Peck, an original cast member and essential member of the Nutmeg Junction theater company.
Lana’s father Shelby Peck was a teacher and fiction writer with an interest in a particular pulp novel hero and he wrote fan fiction for a fanzine that discussed their favorite hero.
As we created Nutmeg Junction, Lana noted that the genre of audio theater we were creating fit her father’s stories very well so we set about putting them into our own world, in our own way. We changed names and added comic elements that her father would have approved of. We created “Golden Age Budget Conscious Adventures of…” as an interesting way to tell a story but in reality our show is at its best when there are more sound effects and music so as we continue to tell Doctor Keen stories, we’ll continually add more elements every time. This week had no music for the main story. When we return, we are thinking of bringing kazoos into the equation. By the time we do the character five times or so we may have the full orchestra style program.
Lana Peck in the foreground with Josh Newey preparing his lines in the back
This episode brought back nearly every member of the original cast (we were missing Conrad and Caroline Sienkiewicz) but we look forward to another opportunity to bring the whole original cast together soon!
This is the top of the author’s head; apparently we needed to show this.
Jandi Hanna portrays Michelle Smalls and Rich Cyr portrays Long John. We also had Kurt Boucher as “Knuckles” though he is the one taking the photos and not any of the at-microphone shots.
The villains of this story are portrayed by Josh Newey and Robert C. Fullerton
CREDITS
EPISODE 21: DOCTOR KEEN AND THE PHENOMENAL FIFTY IN THE WIZARDS OF GALLOWS HILL
STORY BY SHELBY PECK
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY LANA PECK AND J. TIMOTHY QUIRK
CAST:
LANA PECK AS THE NARRATOR AND SAMANTHA THE CAT
J. TIMOTHY QUIRK AS DOCTOR KEEN
KURT BOUCHER AS KNUCKLES
RICH CYR AS LONG JOHN
JANDI HANNA AS MICHELLE SMALLS
JOSH NEWEY AS PRINCE ASMODEOUS/SAM LORD AND SILENT LESTER
ROBERT C. FULLERTON AS THE WIZARD/MR. SEWELL
DOCTOR KEEN WILL RETURN NEXT MONTH FOR THE CONCLUSION OF “THE WIZARD OF GALLOWS HILL!”
As it was mentioned in Episode 5, we had worked on three chapters of the Professor A: Adjunct Professor to the Multi-verse saga and of course we had the intention to do more. But I found when I edited the show that it sounded best with the chapters at approximately 15 minutes in length (at least for the first two) so we had an extra chapter recorded but not shared with our audience yet.
Secondly, when Olivia Wadsworth came on board I had pitched to her the idea for HER character to be Harriet Holmes. It’s always been my intention for each actor to have a signature role. Some actors may have more than one but I’d like each actor to have episodes where their character is the star. Anyway at the time I envisioned a London tale of Harriet being an actual sibling to Sherlock but found that the tv show SHERLOCK had already put out a story where there was a sister character for Sherlock and it would have seemed too derivative if I tried that too, no matter how I played it.
But as it turned out I also wanted to do a tough as nails Detective character. I have many uses for that character and certainly hard boiled detectives are so ubiquitous in Old Time Radio I’ll have many detectives on the show voiced by many different actors.
Ok, and here’s the thing. I wrote the detective story, finding the lost episode of Nutmeg Junction with a detective without a name. I wasn’t sure what we would call her.
I wrote the opening soliloquy the night before recording and posted it on facebook. This helped Olivia work on and find the voice for the recording session. I finished the story the following day, which was the day of recording, with the final pass completed 15 minutes before i left for the radio station. It’s a tight script that flows very well and there’s very little (if anything at all) I’d change about it.
I cast Jack Sheedy in the role of Lenny Snitchwell. Jack is a writer, an author and editor of a newspaper (Catholic Transcript), and the idea of an “English Major” is a call back to another show that for many years carried the torch of Old Time Radio. Jandi reprises her role of Nonna Hanna.
While we were at the table read, we discussed the fact that the detective didn’t have a name. I believe it was either Jandi or Olivia who brought up the idea of Harriet Holmes. i can not take credit for that at all. But the name fit perfectly and I asked Olivia if she wanted the detective character to be called that. She did.
So that’s how we have Harriet Holmes as a “modern” private eye, not beholden to any Sherlock but understood on her own terms.
Jack did a remarkable job as “Lenny”. He knew the character instantly and gave the right flourish.
The Professor Episode was a lot of fun. This one felt had a lot of comedy thanks to all of the actors in the cast. Everyone has a good line or two including Josh and Jandi as the two humans: Freddie and Alice (which they performed in a cockney accent).
There is only one slight editing mistake I missed in this portion of the show but I will fix it in future editions of the show.
Listeners can expect MORE of Harriet Holmes (she will undoubtedly return in Search for the lost episode part two, and more of the Professor. I plan to have scripts written and recorded this month.
Serendip-History Nutmeg Junction recorded two episodes on this day. The cast from left to right is Joel Benson, Josh Newey, David Macharelli, Kurt Boucher, Jandi Hanna, Conrad Sienkiewicz, Olivia Wadsworth, Robert C. Fullerton
This story features the vocal talent of Olivia Wadsworth and David Macharelli who portray two strangers who meet on the trolley and together they find they share much more than a destination.
Within the program are two stories featuring the incomparable Josh Newey as Washington Irving, who gifts to the listening audience the best performance of a fictional Washington Irving ever produced on radio.
David Macharelli’s ad-lib as Charles Dickens to Newey’s Washington Irving, “You put the Ass in Amb-ASS-adore” was enormously popular in the recording studio but we opted not to have that in the broadcast of the show. Perhaps a later version may include it!
Directed by Conrad Sienkiewicz, this episode was rehearsed once at Trinity Episcopal Church and then again before recording the episode.
Rich Cyr was at the rehearsal but could not be at studio on the recording date so we recorded his work separately a day earlier. As a production note, Cyr had studied how Edgar Allan Poe probably sounded with research via youtube videos but during the rehearsal was informed that the author had written the role with Cyr’s own voice in mind.
Quirk performed Cyr’s role during the main recording session and reversed the process when recording Cyr alone, then edited the two recordings together.
Jandi Hanna took on dual roles as the prim and proper Alice Dare-Crook (there was discussion on the name of this narrator character. I considered a George Plympton reference but we settled with an Alistair Cooke one.
There are too many references to count for the Dickens/Irving interaction. yes, Washington Irving had a brother Ebenezer who had a shop that burned. i can’t help but think that Bracebridge hall actually did have an inspiration for Dickens for the Christmas Carol. Barnaby Rudge was a work that wasn’t exactly a barn burner for Dickens. References to Great Expectations, Hard Times, Bleak House, etc are all in there as well as many references involving Christmas Carol.
For the Poe story, the idea of “Helen” at Sunnyside came from the idea of wanting Poe to get the idea of Lenore for The Raven but didn’t want it obvious at the beginning. Researching Irving just a little i did find a relative named Helen who may have lived in western part of New York so I justified it that way. The idea of being hard of hearing so someone can hear the LEN sound more than the HE” in Helen sound worked for me.
Fans of Poe will recognize all the references from “The philosophy of Furniture”, “Three Sundays in a Week”, obviously the Murders in the Rue Morgue (and if you haven’t read it, there’s an additional pun in how we referenced it.
Poe actually did write to Washington Irving who responded in writing.
I see no evidence they actually met in person but Poe was a mysterious figure and he didn’t live so far away that such a trip would be out of the question so I like the fable aspect of this meeting.
A “star” of this program is the music by Robert C. Fullerton. He recorded the song twice, once with vocals and instrument and once just instrumental. Then I used the instrumental underneath the two characters (Kristen and Steve) as a musical emphasis which I think was a rather special aspect of this program.
‘
CREDITS
SERENDIP-HISTORY WRITTEN BY J. TIMOTHY QUIRK (C) 2018
STARRING:
OLIVIA WADSWORTH AS KRISTEN
DAVID MACHARELLI AS STEVE AND CHARLES DICKENS
JOSH NEWEY AS WASHINGTON IRVING
JANDI HANNA AS ALICE DARE-CROOK AND HELEN
RICH CYR AS EDGAR ALLAN POE
J. TIMOTHY QUIRK AS CONDUCTOR JT
ROBERT C. FULLERTON AS HIMSELF
MUSIC
THE NUTMEG JUNCTION THEME (C) 2018 ROBERT C. FULLERTON
MR. JT (C) 2018 ROBERT C. FULLERTON
SERENDIPITY (C) 2018 ROBERT C. FULLERTON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO THE ARTIST AND MUSIC PERFORMED BY ROBERT C FULLERTON AND USED ON THIS PROGRAM WITH PERMISSION
THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. THE PROGRAM DOES NOT PURPORT TO PRESENT ACTUAL EVENTS.
rehearsal[/caption]
Nutmeg Junction 